The good news;  Hennepin County residents are applying for carry permits at a record clip:

From January through April of 2012, the Sheriff’s Office took in 1,875 applications for permits to carry. In comparison, the department netted 1,220 applications during the same time frame in 2011– an increase of nearly 54 percent.

Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek said the increase surprised him because 2011 was the busiest year for new gun permit applications since 2003, which is when the permit law took effect.

If 2012 stays on pace, it will dwarf the previous year.

It is, in fact, good news to see more Henco residents taking their moral civic duty to be proficient with firearms seriously.

The funny part?

Two, really.  When Fox9 was presenting the report last night, in their little clip of putative analysis, they noted (by way of intended irony) that it’s odd so many people would get handgun permits since crime in Henco is down 38% this year.

Now, why would that be?

No, not entirely due to gun permits – to claim it would be wrong, and to demand it would be a straw man.  But every time a citizen gets a permit, the deterrent value of the statute grows – and Minnesota’s number of permittees is on the higher end of the national average.

Now, criminals aren’t known for reading newspapers.  And yet violent crime in Henco has dropped.

Why could that be?  Why, oh why?

Bonus:  Kudos and Brickbats:  Kudos to Henco Sheriff Stanek, who has by all accounts run an honest shop in re handling permit applications, even though he works for a government that gives Berkeley a run for his money.

And a kudo and a brickbat for Channel 9 News.  When wrapping up the story last night, anchorette Heidi Collins asked the reporter (Eric Runge, I think) if all these permits in the hands of law-abiding citizens were a cause for “concern”.

The reporter, to his credit, noted correctly that carry permit holders tend not to commit crimes, more or less.  It’s not a big reach; at any given moment in Henco, there are probably 15-20,000 people with post-2003 carry permits; since 2003, they have committed exactly zero murders, two homicides ruled justifiable, and countless defensive gun uses that deterred countless (because literally – nobody counts them) crimes.

A little bird in Minneapolis sent me an invitation.

Not, it’s not to me.  It was to someone else – for a $100/plate fundraiser for Minneapolis’ Ward 3 Councilcritter Diane Hofstede, featuring Governor Dayton, Rep. Phyllis Kahn,City Council president Barbara Johnson, and a galaxy of Minneapolis DFL stars.

Not my kind of crowd.

The interesting bit, though, is the stationery.

That’s City of Minneapolis stationery.

For an election fundraiser, this coming Thursday night.

Is this kosher?

Or is this just another of the petty little bits of corruption that attend life in a one-party city?

UPDATE:  I’m informed that the letter and the use of the letterhead is kosher.  It says “not printed at taxpayers expense” in the lower left corner.

That answers that question…

A shooting  by reported carry-permit holder in South Minneapolis may just illustrate the problems facing the law-abiding citizen.

We’ come back to that.  First, the reported details:

A man was fatally shot Thursday night in south Minneapolis in what may have been a case of self-defense by another man who interrupted a robbery, police said.

Just before 10 p.m., police got a 911 report that someone had been shot in a parking area behind the Super Grand Buffet restaurant about a block west of Cub Foods near the intersection of Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenues, according to police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer.

Among all the shootings that have plagued that neighborhood – which is, by the way, my old neighborhood – over the decades, this one is distinguished by one factor:

When police arrived, a man with a gun who said he had a valid concealed-weapon permit told them he had interrupted the robbery of a woman in her 60s. The man said that he chased the robbers, a male and a female, exchanged fire and killed the male robber.

And if you’re a normal person with a living soul (and, of course, all the facts check out), that’s all it takes; guy interrupts two pieces of vermin not just robbing but (according to some media reports) pistol-whipping an older woman; and gives chase. Robber turns to shoot the good samaritan; samaritan shoots first.

But the Hennepin County Attorney’s office aren’t people – they’re prosecutors.  People who not only focus on the letter of the law, but the letters of the law that their bosses want empasized; they work for an office whose tacit purpose, run as it is by a DFL elected official, is to enforce DFL social policy, which is that only urban thugs and the police should have guns, and that we, the law-abiding, should be disarmed and docile.

Police took both the alleged female robber and shooter into custody while they investigate his account of the shooting. Two guns — one from the slain man, one from the shooter — were recovered, Palmer said.

On the one hand – especially if you’re a resident of a long-blighted neighborhood, or have ever had a grandmother – you can sympathize with the guy chasing the scumbags down. You might even root for the guy – I sure would.

But there are two problems here:

Self Defense Law Starts Our Shooter Out With Two Strikes – The problem with self-defense is that it is an “affirmative defense” – you’re saying “Yes, I killed the guy, but I have an excuse”.  In other words, you essentially plead guilty to murder, and spend the trial process fighting that admitted guilt by proving four things:

• You had reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. No problem in this case (as reported): scumbag, who had just pistol-whipped a defenseless woman, points a gun at the samaritan.  It’s reasonable.
• Lethal force was justified under the circumstances – Hello?  It’s a gun.  Two down.
• You weren’t a willing participant in the incident – This is intended to prevent people from claiming self-defense after, say, bar fights.  This wasn’t (reportedly) a bar fight.  Any rational person gets this.  But some pencil-necked dweeb with big political ambitions who is trying to parlay a U of M Law degree into a political career, sitting in a nice warm office with metal detectors and cops protecting him, can decide “the letter of the law is you can not be involved in the scuffle first”, forcing the samaritan to spend his life’s savings defending himself at trial.
• You made reasonable efforts to avoid using lethal force – And that same pencil-necked lawyer can say “he made NO effort to avoid shooting the alleged robber!  He chased the poor disadvantaged fellow!”.

This – if all the facts are as reported, as I am assuming they are – is why we need more reforms to Minnesota’s self-defense laws like those proposed in the past several sessions by Tony Cornish.  A key reform would be to do what many states do, with great success; give self-defense the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; make the Assistant County Attorney prove the self-defense shooter didn’t meet the criteria of a self-defense shooting.

“But that’ll make it easy for people to shoot each other over fender-benders!  Or because someone thinks they got the stink-eye!”  Nope.  Think of every non-justified shooting – like, second-degree murder – that you can remember.  Find one that that meets the four critera above.  Good luck with that.

I’m going to hope that saner heads prevail in this case.  Of course, the Henco Attorney’s office has a long record of not having many of them, when it comes to the law-abiding citizen’s right to self-defense.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Bridges deficient. Millions needed for repairs. No money in budget because . . .

. . . the money was diverted to light rail.

Priorities, people. Focus on priorities.

Speaking of which, I wonder if they ever got that little problem with the Washington Avenue Bridge – as in, “is it and its old-fashioned truss construction, not too different from the old 35W Bridge, strong enough to handle trains zipping over it” – resolved?

The DFL retains two absurdly-safe Senate seats in special elections last night:

In Brooklyn Center, registered nurse Chris Eaton won the seat formerly held by DFL Sen. Linda Scheid, who passed away this summer after a six-year battle with cancer. Rep. Jeff Hayden, an incumbent legislator who represents south Minneapolis, will take the Senate seat of DFL Sen. Linda Berglin.

Hayden and Eaton will now enjoy a one-to-four-year vacation, as they join Tom Bakk’s do-nothing Senate DFL caucus.

A few weeks ago, when I was in Minneapolis to speak at the SD61 special endorsing convention, I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Fields, who is running for the GOP endorsement to run against Keith Ellison in the Fifth.

And as Nancy at True North discovered, Fields is an imposing guy with a compelling story:

Fields grew up poor in the South Bronx and said he made “horrible choices” in his youth – including accidentally burning down his home while playing with matches at 5, and taking up smoking at 13.

And a conservative grew in the Bronx:

He lived in Section 8 housing and during that time his 24-year-old stepfather bought 3 buildings for $1 each, creating a co-op with the help of donations and volunteers. Fields says that investment now holds over $45 million in assets. He learned a valuable lesson from his stepfather — that anyone can make a positive difference.

After working on Wall Street, Fields joined the Marines and retired an officer after 21 years. Having served in the Middle East, he offers first-hand knowledge and perspectives of the complexities of fighting terror and maintaining a military presence.

It’ll take a confluence of several things to unseat Ellison in a district like the Fifth:

1. A wave of discontent with the Democrats and DFL so immense that nobody, not even Ellison, is invulnerable.
2. A GOP organization that goes against decades of history and gets hordes of volunteers out on the street.
3. A solid outreach to the minority vote that has become so important in both of the Twin Cities (an area where the DFL has been falling increasingly short, as they basically assume those votes are in the bag from the word go).
4. More fundraising than any Republican has managed in the Fifth in forever.
5. A Fifth District that’s been diluted (possibly)
6. A really good candidate.

Dan Haugen, who we last ran into a few years back when we taught him a little about research, writes for “Midwest Energy News” – which is funded by an alt-energy pressure group – about Minneapolis’ new biking director, which recently survived a challenge in the Minneapolis city council even as the city lays off firemen.

The rationale is – well, both typical and mildly troubling (emphasis added):

‘An investment, not an expense’

Across the country, cities like Portland are hiring bicycle and pedestrian coordinators to help attract not only federal project dollars but also to make their cities a more attractive place for workers who want the option of living without a car, says Joan Pasiuk, director of Bike Walk Twin Cities, which promotes non-motorized transportation.

In other words, you have to spend taxpayer money to get other taxpayers’ money:

Chicago has had a bicycle coordinator for a decade and a half. Omaha hired its first bike coordinator last year. Even cities like Miami and Phoenix that probably don’t come to mind as major bicycling hubs have hired for similar positions in recent years.

“Cities are seeing this as an investment, not an expense,” says Pasiuk.

And there you see the spread; cities that are broke, or cities that are doing well enough that they can afford some of the petty luxuries like, well, biking coordinators.

It’s an odd set of priorities for a city that’s flirting with “broke”.

I had to mention this:

And then there’s the health savings. Researchers in the Netherlands found that despite being at higher risk for injury, cyclists enjoy “substantially larger” health benefits compared to drivers.

But if you read this blog, you knew that two years ago.

UPDATE:  I changed the reference to MN Energy News in the first graf; it’s “Funded by”, rather than “a front for…”, the pressure group.  It was pointed out to me – civilly, mind you – that the phrase “front” casts an unnecessary aspersion.  I’ve reworded accordingly.

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak shows that deals with the city’s fiscal woes with the aplomb of a Gabor sister;if you take care of life’s luxuries,the necessities take care of themselves:

The day after Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak vetoed a City Council effort to prevent 10 firefighter layoffs, the city sent out a new job posting: a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.

Which just goes to show that no matter how much Minneapolis and Saint Paul carp about losing (part  of) their subsidy from the parts of the state that work, they can always find the money to take care of their pets and their pork.  The bike and pedestrian director will make betwen $61-84K.

The mayor’s office argues that the new coordinator will make the city safer for cyclists and pedestrians, but council President Barb Johnson said it is a “tempting” target for extra revenue to save firefighter jobs.

“We’ll look at that. We’ll look at all the general fund positions that we have currently,” Johnson said. “Because a majority of the council wants to maintain these 10 firefighters and not lay them off.”

Those 10 firefighters, of course, have less to do with balancing the city’s budget than they do with serving as a battering ram against the GOP in the legislature, giving Dayton, Tom Bakk and Paul Thissen a chanting point when the GOP attacks “Local Government Aid”.

Speaking of which, here’s what the city’s hiring:

In addition to the bicycle coordinator, the city is looking to hire a database engineer, a stationary engineer, an internal auditor and a manager of intellectual properties for the police department.

Intellectual property in the police department?

Cops are getting patents?  Or are so many of them writing books (I guess that reference dates me) that the department needs to be administering copyrights and trademarks?

Can anyone ‘splain me that one?

35W Bridge Memorial vandalized two days after opening:

Construction worker Rob Bailey went to the Mississippi River on Monday evening, as he had every Aug. 1 for the previous three years, to remember his co-worker and friend Greg “Jolly” Jolstad.

He watched as a new memorial to the 35W bridge collapse was unveiled about a quarter-mile upstream from the site of the tragedy.

“I go down there to pray every year at 6:05 p.m.,” said Bailey, who had just stepped off the bridge moments before it collapsed.

Two days after making his pilgrimage, he was stunned to hear that the memorial had been vandalized, with 22 stainless steel letters ripped out of a message affixed to the memorial’s granite wall.

The vandals in the Twin Cities are getting out of control.

On the one hand, it’s just plain depressing.

On the other hand, it’s tempting to buy two walls on a high-vandalism street, like University or Lake or whatever.  Paint them both a pristine white.  Post one of them “Free Public Graffiti Mural”, and the other one “No Graffiti”.  See how many people go out of the way to deface the “No Graffiti” wall.

And maybe taze them.

President Obama denies individual aid for Henco storm victims:

Rybak and state officials learned Tuesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied Minnesota’s request for individual assistance to homeowners, renters and businesses affected by the tornado. In its decision, the agency said “the damage from this event to dwellings was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the combined capabilities of the State, affected local governments and voluntary agencies to warrant the designation of Individual Assistance for Hennepin County.”

In search of other options for federal help, Rybak called the White House on Tuesday. The response: an invitation to meet with President Obama and other federal officials on Monday to discuss possibilities for federal help for the tornado-torn North Minneapolis neighborhood, which has one of the city’s highest concentrations of poverty and unemployment. The request for individual assistance from FEMA was meant to help homeowners, renters and businesses lacking insurance to cover the damage.

As David Strom noted on Facebook:

We have Dayton, who was a Democrat Senator. We have two Democrat Senators, one who served with Obama. We have Rybak, who supposedly a favorite of Obama’s. We have a tornado hitting one of the most economically depressed areas in the state.

Result? Minimal help from Washington.

When the Party of Pork can’t even deliver the pork when it’s needed, what do we keep them around for?

An afternoon tornado shredded North Minneapolis, a neighborhood that hardly needed shredding.

The storm left one dead, with two critically injured.

Rybak as ordered a curfew for a huge stretch of the Northside:

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan said early Sunday night that a large section of north Minneapolis — roughy 4 square miles — was being put under a curfew to help emergency personnel move around and to combat potential looting of damaged homes and businesses.

The curfew was scheduled to run from 9 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday and cover from Interstate 94 west to Penn Avenue and from Plymouth Avenue north to Dowling Avenue. Anyone trying to enter that area will have to show identification first, the mayor and the police chief said. Also, residents within that perimeter must stay in their homes “for their own safety,” said city spokesman Matt Laible.

“We don’t want any looting,” Dolan said, explaining the need for the curfew. “There’s property strewn all over. There are wires down. There’s not much lighting. It’s for people’s safety and for the safety of people’s property.”

The KARE11 Facebook page has a jarring photoessay on the damage, taken earlier today.

It’s the Minnesota left (and RINO-right)’s favorite club-over-the-head line; “if we don’t [fill in the desired spending proposal], the Twin Cities will become a cold Omaha”.

It’s kind of funny, really, since Omaha is thriving these days.

Steve Berg at the MinnPost takes a whack at analyzing the census data – and doesn’t like what he (and, more to the point, his various sources) see:

At first glance, the 2010 Census results seem satisfying and unremarkable. Only upon further review do they reveal unbalanced patterns of growth and wealth that spell trouble for Minneapolis-St. Paul as the metro economy tries to regain momentum.

The official count placed MSP’s 13-county metro population at 3,278,833, up 10.4 percent from a decade ago. That was enough for the Twin Cities to retain its rank as the nation’s 16th largest metro market. While the region grew 40 percent slower than during the go-go ’90s, it still outpaced the 9.7 percent national rate, and it grew faster than all other Midwestern and Northeastern metros in the top 20.

So far, so good.

But there’s “bad” news – or, as Republicans would see it, “reality” and “a changing market” – along with it:

How the region grew should deeply trouble Minnesota’s political, business and civic leaders. Virtually all growth was on the suburban edge, while the central cities and most inner suburbs lost both population and relative wealth. Not only did the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul fail to gain population, they are now fully 30 percent poorer than the metro region as a whole.

The important questions, of course, are “why?” and “what do we do about it?”

And the answers to both – at least as presented by Berg (no relation) are heavily dependent on ideology.

The Twin Cities metro is at a crossroads.  The suburbs – especially the commerce-heavy south and chock-full-of-business west – are thriving.  The latest census shows the Third and Sixth Congressional districts are booming, while Minneapolis and Saint Paul are stagnant at best – which is good news politically, as the DFL strangleholds on both congressional districts will be diluted, but bad news economically, as the urban areas require more and more life support from the parts of the state that actually work.

So what are the signs?  Is there hope?  Will Minneapolis and Saint Paul bounce back?  Or are they destined to become a cold Flint Michigan?

If you read Berg’s article – drawn from the state’s “urban planning” intelligentsia…:

That’s not a healthy trend. Unless a more balanced growth pattern emerges, one that also includes the metro area’s inner districts, and unless prosperity is shared more broadly, the MSP region will lag behind in competing for the young talent and high-quality jobs needed to keep pace as the economy recovers.

…the signs aren’t good.

More Monday.

With no majority in either chamber, the DFL has resorted to chanting points.

The first one was “where is the GOP’s budget?  Huh?  Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

Then the GOP released a budget – and demonstrated that the DFL really didn’t have one, since none of them supported Dayton’s budget proposal.

Then, it was “But you said it was going to be call cuts?  Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

That must not have tested well.  The meme died off in a week or so.

The latest?  “The GOP is attacking the cities”.

What they mean, of course, is “cutting Local Government Aid”, the program that started out as a state subsidizing small towns’ infrastructures, and has turned into a state subsidy of urban DFL profligacy.

The governments of Duluth, Saint Paul and Minneapolis have done a great job of inextricably tangling their budgets with the state, to the point where any discussion of reforming LGA is met, I think without any actual considered thought, with “we’re going to lay off firefighters and cops and teachers!”.

Not “we’ll have to cut back on lawn-mowing”.

Or “We’ll have police doing less non-essential stuff”, or “we’ll have to replace unionized staffers with lower-priced help for lower-profile jobs” or “maybe we don’t need to mow the grass in the parks quite as often” or “we can consolidate some summer rec programs” or “maybe spending $25,000 on dadaistic, incomprehensible “traffic calming art”…

…which may or may not “calm” traffic, but certainly had a lot of drivers meandering about holding their heads in mute incomprehension, which probably caused accidents, until all the “art” was stolen”, or “maybe our schools need to spend their resources on teachers, rather than administrators”, or “maybe if we stopped putting half the boys in special ed for being boys, we’d have a lower Special Ed budget” or “maybe we don’t need to bus kids who live half a mile from school; the obese little monsters could stand a good walk”, or “Maybe we don’t need $300,000 worth of politically-correct electric cars”, or “maybe fourth-coldest state capitol in the US doesn’t need three refrigerated ice rinks” or “maybe taking huge swathes of housing off the taxable rolls for “affordable” public housing that just isn’t “affordable”, and serves no purpose but to turn the cities into warehouses for the poor, primarily to create islands of utterly DFL-dependent voters”…

…or much of anything.

None of the above.  Because it’s traditionally been easier to scare people into submission by threatening to lay off cops, firemen and teachers (rather than meter maids, community organizers and administrators).

Attack on the cities?

Pfft.  The rest of the state has been getting attacked by the cities for a generation now.

What you’re seeing isn’t an “attack on the cities”.  It’s the rest of the state standing up to three big bullies.

And like big bullies, they’ll bluster and phumpher and fume and threaten.

And just like anyone who is responding to a bully, the important job is to stand firm, and not letting their bluster sway you.

Minneapolis – aka “The Greece of the Midwest”, “A Cold California”, or “A Less Toxic New Jersey” – is stuck in a vortext of public pensions, higher taxes, and shrinking tax base.

Katie Kieffer attended the city’s annual tax meeting (held with about two days’ notice to the city’s, er, taxpayers) and found that the natives were restless.

The city suffers from zooming public pensions and a shrinking tax base.  Their solution – in true Greek, California, or Flint Michigan style -is to jack up taxes on those that are remaining and have property to tax.

And it’s just not working!

Minneapolis is now considered the second-most dangerous city in the U.S. when it comes to falling property values. Meanwhile, the city’s unemployment rate has increased to 6.7 percent from the month of May’s level of 6.1 percent. I think a Minneapolis home-owner named Sean offered the best solution: “It’s time to cut the budget.”

Read the whole thing.

Joel Rosenberg is currently sitting in jail for violating a court order signed by Hennepin County Chief Judge Jim Swenson that declared that guns were not allowed in “courtrooms” in Henco…

…notwithstanding that he was not arrested in a “courthouse” – he was arrested at the office of the Chief of Police, which wasn’t even listed on Judge Swenson’s court order.  No matter – Judge Swenson had declared some county buildings to be “courthouses”.  And Henco judge Janet Poston is apparently closing ranks with a cop who apparently embarassed himself by arresting Rosenberg for behaving entirely legally – all apparently entirely by judicial fiat.

So I got to wondering; how else can a county judge pre-empt state law with a stroke of the pen?

And after exhaustive research, here they are:  The Top Ten Laws-By-Proclamation From Henco Judge Swenson.

10. All Hennepin County residents not wearing aluminum foil pants shall be subject to tasing and confiscation of property, at the sole discretion of Judge Poston.

9. Judges shall not be referred to as “your honor”, but as “your serene majesty”.

8. All betting spreads are doubled for judges, police, fire, and county administrative employees, and other county workers as defined by a Hennepin County judge.

7. No tabs are to be picked up by Hennepin County judges.

6. The United States Constitution and Minnesota state law are both considered to be  firearms, for purposes of “Courthouse” carry restrictions.

5. So is “satirizing Judge Swenson’s alleged penchant for authoritarian overreach”.

4. Manny’s Steak House is now legally considered to be “Judge Swenson’s chambers”.

3. Britney Spears is totally hotter than Christina Aguilera.

2. All of Hennepin County is actually an elementary school; nobody can possess a firearm within 1,000 yards of Hennepin County.

1. The law is pretty much whatever Judge Swenson says it is; if you don’t believe it, bend over and INSERT VIOLENT VERB and in the INSERT AWKWARD BIT OF ANATOMY.

Whew.  Seems pretty draconian to me.  But we’d best not complain; they’re all legal and stuff.

Wanna good laugh for the  morning?

Here’s a scan from Henco’s complaint against Joel Rosenberg:

Now, as I’ve ascertained, I’m no lawyer.

But Mark Bennett is.  And he’s got the ultimate write-up, so far, of the Rosenberg case.  It’s over at his blog.

The warrant is for the felony of carrying a firearm in the courthouse. Because carrying a firearm in the courthouse complex is a felony—except for “persons who carry pistols according to the terms of a permit issued under section 624.714 and who so notify the sheriff or the commissioner of public safety, as appropriate“—which, oddly enough, is a category into which Joel neatly fits. And except that the city hall is not really a part of the courthouse complex, but a judge says it is.

The warrant is also for contempt of court because, you see, there was a judge’s order declaring the police station a courthouse (how many legs does a dog have, if a judge says that a tail is a leg?) and barring citizens from carrying firearms there—except that, among other problems, “no sheriff, police chief, governmental unit, government official, government employee, or other person or body acting under color of law or governmental authority may … limit the exercise of a permit to carry.”

Bennett, a defense attorney in Texas, points out the rather odd circumstances of  a judge INSERT A VERB a court order that didn’t even have a charge filled in:

Yes, it is in fact alleged that he DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR in contempt of the Hennepin County Juvenile Court. Now, I ask you: can we really have people like Joel Rosenberg going around DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR? I say not, and I say we should DESCRIBE KANGAROO PROCEDURE and then DESCRIBE BIZARRE AND PAINFUL PUNISHMENT them.

I don’t ordinarily pick on other people’s judges—Texas being a target-rich environment—but what kind of Ruben-Guerrero judge is Janet Poston, to sign an arrest warrant based on the allegation that someone has DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR? She didn’t even bother to read the papers.

Conclusion?

So Rosenberg will sit in jail dealing with his health problems, and Rosenberg will fight the case, and Rosenberg will win the case. And, before all is said and done, Sergeant Palmer’s little self-esteem-fluffing exercise will cost the city a pretty penny.

Read the whole thing.

And I hope that when Joel’s lawsuit is over he has the City of Minneapolis by the DESCRIBE A TENDER PIECE OF ANATOMY, and walks out with DESCRIBE ABSURD AMOUNT OF MONEY.

Here’s Part III of Joel Rosenberg’s side of his encounter with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer last month.

The incident was the subject of a fairly egregious bit of lousy reporting by the City Pages, among others.

———-

Part Two: The Contempt of Court that Joel Didn’t Commit

By Joel Rosenberg

And so, we finally arrive at the point of this particular part of the exercise, where we get to the crimes that Bill Palmer committed when he lunged at me, took my gun without authority, acting under color of law and authority, and only gave it back — and only let me continue to examine the public data that he, as MPD Data Practices Officer, had invited me to Tim Dolan’s office to examine — when I submitted to his unlawful order to remove it from City Hall.

And, let’s once again, look at the law, as it’s written, with some emphasis added.

609.27 COERCION.

Subdivision 1. Acts constituting. Whoever orally or in writing makes any of the following threats and thereby causes another against the other’s will to do any act or forbear doing a lawful act is guilty of coercion and may be sentenced as provided in subdivision 2:

(1) a threat to unlawfully inflict bodily harm upon, or hold in confinement, the person threatened or another, when robbery or attempt to rob is not committed thereby; or

(2) a threat to unlawfully inflict damage to the property of the person threatened or another; or

(3) a threat to unlawfully injure a trade, business, profession, or calling; or

(4) a threat to expose a secret or deformity, publish a defamatory statement, or otherwise to expose any person to disgrace or ridicule; or

(5) a threat to make or cause to be made a criminal charge, whether true or false; provided, that a warning of the consequences of a future violation of law given in good faith by a peace officer or prosecuting attorney to any person shall not be deemed a threat for the purposes of this section.

Subd. 2.Sentence.

Whoever violates subdivision 1 may be sentenced as follows:

(1) to imprisonment for not more than 90 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $1,000, or both if neither the pecuniary gain received by the violator nor the loss suffered by the person threatened or another as a result of the threat exceeds $300, or the benefits received or harm sustained are not susceptible of pecuniary measurement; or

(2) to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both, if such pecuniary gain or loss is more than $300 but less than $2,500; or

(3) to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both, if such pecuniary gain or loss is $2,500, or more.

History: 1963 c 753 art 1 s 609.27; 1971 c 23 s 40; 1977 c 355 s 7; 1983 c 359 s 87; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444; 2004 c 228 art 1 s 72

609.43 MISCONDUCT OF PUBLIC OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE.

A public officer or employee who does any of the following, for which no other sentence is specifically provided by law, may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than one year or to payment of a fine of not more than $3,000, or both:

(1) intentionally fails or refuses to perform a known mandatory, nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of the office or employment within the time or in the manner required by law; or

(2) in the capacity of such officer or employee, does an act knowing it is in excess of lawful authority or knowing it is forbidden by law to be done in that capacity; or

(3) under pretense or color of official authority intentionally and unlawfully injures another in the other’s person, property, or rights; or

(4) in the capacity of such officer or employee, makes a return, certificate, official report, or other like document having knowledge it is false in any material respect.

History: 1963 c 753 art 1 s 609.43; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444

Lets review the bidding, shall we?

Palmer threatened to arrest me if I didn’t leave. He had no right to arrest me; none at all, regardless of his interpretation of the court order. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) Doesn’t matter what the judge’s interpretation of the court order is, either, for the same reason. It’s null and void, and WOULD BE constitutionally overbroad with regard to the Minneapolis City Hall, if it applied to City Hall at all.

It doesn’t. I’ll get back to that again.

Whoever orally … makes any of the following threats and thereby causes another against the other’s will to do any act or forbear doing a lawful act is guilty of coercion….

a threat to unlawfully…hold in confinement…. (that’s the threat of arrest that Palmer made, repeatedly. Let’s keep going) a threat to make or cause to be made a criminal charge

609.43 Misconduct of a public officer …

A public officer or employee …. does an act knowing it is in excess of lawful authority… or intentionally and unlawfully injures another in the other’s rights…

Which is why Palmer’s lawyered up.

One last, minor thing. “But wait, you say; there was a court order for Minneapolis City Hall at 300 South Fifth Street. It might be questionable, but until the courts determine that it’s invalid, you have to abide by it, Joel. That court order, just as it was written, was effective on that date — Craig Steiner, the head of Minneapolis Data Practices, told you so.”

And I’ve shared with you a copy of that court order, which was, arguably (not very, but a weak argument could be made) effective on that date for 300 South Fifth Street, Minneapolis City Hall.

Let’s take Bill Palmer’s word for it that he was familiar with this court order. He’d read it, he studied it, and by God he was going to enforce it. He was going to grab me, to threaten me to compel me not to carry at 300 South Fifth Street.

The address of Minneapolis City Hall, though, is at 350 South 5th Street. It says so, right on their official web page.

Hell, you can ask Bill Palmer that. He should know. He works there. At 350th South 5th Street.

Ask him, but remember, he does have the right to remain silent. He had that right in Tim Dolan’s office, too. He had the right to remain silent; he had the right to keep his hands to himself; he had the right to not engage in coercion or misconduct. He had every right to not grab my property — and no right whatsoever to take it, without my permission — at all. He had no right to hold it as a hostage to my compliance to his unlawful demands.

He had the right to not commit any crime at all.

He did not, however, have the ability.

Too bad that you can’t find a City Attorney around when you need one to draw up a summons and warrant, isn’t it?

Susan Seigel, Minneapolis City Attorney: please have one of your prosecutors draw up papers and charge the son of a bitch?

Thanks in advance.

More on this story coming up, I have a hunch, this week.

A few weeks ago, I ran the first part of a three-part series by Joel Rosenberg regarding his confrontation with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer.

The confrontation was captured on video.

The City Pages tittered about the story, but really didn’t understand it.

Here’s Part II.  Part III follows later today.

Part Two: The Contempt of Court that Joel Didn’t Commit

By Joel Rosenberg

When last we left our heroes, we were about to take a look at the court order that poor Bill Palmer couldn’t find, and which he pretended to be trying to enforce. He knew better, which is why he didn’t arrest me.

Here it is:

———-WHEREAS it is the court’s responsibility to ensure the proper, safe, and orderly administratio nof justice throughout Hennepin County coutr facilities, and

WHEREAS the Court has a weapons policy in place since July 12, 1995 that prohibits any firearm or other weapons from being taken into a courtroom or the environs of any other juvenile justice or other court facility witin Hennepin County except under certain conditions described below,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all persons, exept as provided in this Order, are prohibited form having weapons on their person or in their possession in Hennepin County court facilities, regardless of whether or not they have a firearms permit, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that persons entering Hennepin County court facilities may be subject to screening for weapons upon entry; anyone refusing to submit to such searches shall be refused admission, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all weapons, including but not limited to firearms and any related ammunition, stun guns, taser weapons, and replica or toy guns shall be removed form said persons before they are allowed to proceed further into the court facility and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this order shall not apply to licensed peace officers or federally authorized law enforcement agents in the performance of their official duties. Only law enforcement personnel empowered by law to carry weapons may enter a court facility with a weapon. The peace officer exception to the Order shall not apply to officers present in court as private parties, support persons, or to provide testimony not required by their job duties, and

IT IS FURTHE RORDERED that weapons be used as an exhibit in an official proceeding may be taking into a courtroom or any other court facility only fter they have been checked for safety by the Hennepin County Sheriff or HSeriff’s designee, e sealed in a transparent vinyl tape envelope or otherwise be secured to ensure security during the proceedings by a peace offier in the performance of official duties, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Hennepin County Court facilities include:

1. Hennepin Government Center

300 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis

2. Minneapolis City Hall,

300 Wouth Fifth Street, Minneapolis

3. District Court Division II – Brookdale

6125 Shingle Creek Parkway, Brooklyn Center

4. Disrict Court Division III – Ridgedale,

12601 Ridgedale Drive, Minnetonka

5. District Court Division IV – Southdale

7009 York Drive, Edina

6. Hennepin County Public Safety Facility

401 South Fourth Avenue, Minneapolis

7. Hennepin County Family Justice Center

110 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis

8. Hennepin County Juvenile Justice Center

626 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that any person violating this Order shall be suejct to being held in contempt of court and may be subject to a jail sentence.

This Order is effective immediately.

Date: 9/28/08

———-

Interesting, isn’t it? The judge appears to have decided that Minneapolis City Hall is part of the Hennepin County Court complex.

How’s that work? Can the judge decide that a radius of a thousand miles from his bench is part of the court complex? How about fifty? How about the McDonald’s across the street? How about Minneapolis City Hall?

Well, there’s actually just a touch of logic to that — there are courtrooms in City Hall. They’re not used all that often, I understand, but when they are being used by a judge for official county business, the order would clearly apply.

But the rest of it? Nah. It’s what’s called “unconstitutionally broad.” Ask your favorite law professor; I’ve asked more than one of mine.

Here’s what one said:

“This covers entire buildings where courtrooms and court office space are only a portion, often small and temporary, of the entire facility. A good example is the Minneapolis city hall. This order is OVERBROAD [his emphasis. JR].”

In practice, the order is enforced, almost all the time, perfectly legitimately, by the HCSO: outside the security zone of the courthouse, no problem; permit holders come and go, carrying if they please as they do whatever business they have with the courts. Before going into the zone, the permit holder disarms, and stores his weapons somewhere — typically, out in the car.

Easy, peasy.

Also in practice: Tim Dolan and the badged bullies of the MPD have been using their willfully false “interpretation” of the order to bully permit holders into not carrying anywhere in city hall. But they don’t *dare* actually arrest somebody who has, like me, given notice (covering the felony issue, even if you believe that, say, the janitor’s closet in City Hall is a courtroom).

Why? Because they know that the order, being overboard, is utterly unenforceable.

And if they try to enforce it?

That’s for the last chapter: The Crimes Bill Palmer Committed.

Later today – where Palmer allegedly messed up.

Reading the roll call for House Resolution 1737 – the censure of Charlie Rangel – it’s interesting to look at who voted what.

The resolution passed with a solid 333-79 margin.   The 77 “nays” were a very partisan set, of course – 77 Democrats.

Of Minnesota’s entire delegation, only Keith Ellison voted “nay”  – saying that Rangel didn’t deserve any punishment for his corruption.

Thanks, Fifth District.

The other day, we ran the video of Joel Rosenberg’s encounter with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer, along with some derisive catcalls at the City Pages’ “coverage” of the incident.

Joel is, I should add for those who don’t follow science fiction literature or Second Amendment law, both a science fiction writer and the author of the definitive concealed carry bibles for both Minnesota and Missouri (?). 

Among many other things.

The following is Part I of Joel’s account of his encounter with Sergeant Palmer.

———-
The Palmer Fiasco:  Part One:  Why Joel Isn’t A Criminal

By Joel Rosenberg

A few preparatory matters…

The Palmer Fiasco is only a small part of what’s going on. I could get into the malicious, false arrest of my wife the dismissal of the charges, once she and her lawyer made it clear that they weren’t interested in a plea, but her complete and total exoneration; and, last weekend, the reinstatement of the charges against her. I could get into the data practices requests I’ve been making, and Bill Palmer’s unlawful demand for money before he started to do his job. I could get into the connection to http://gangstrikefarce.com, and how I told Jesse Garcia of the Minneapolis Police Department that I had been working on a book on that, before I ran into a much, much bigger story.

But I’ll save that for another time, and just point whoever’s interested to http://familymatterii.com. There’s a lot going on. Leave it at that, for now.

In order to understand the crimes that Bill Palmer committed—that’s crimes, plural—you have to know a little law, both in statute, and in practice.

[Continued after the jump]

(more…)

Joel Rosenberg – firearms instsructor to the stars – has been involved in an ongoing kerfuffle with the City of Minneapolis.  And when I say “kerfuffle”, I mean “series of intricately interlocking kerfuffles” complex enough to warrant a book of their own (which one might expect Rosenberg, a science fiction writer with a long bibliography, to be working on).

Last month, he got into a kerfuffle – I guess it’d be a “sub-kerfuffle” in this case – with Minneapolis Police Department Sergeant William Palmer when he went to a pre-arranged interview with Palmer at the MPD headquarters.  He was carrying a number of handguns openly.

Here’s the video of the event (most of the action is right up front):

Now, “Erin Carlyle” at the City Pages – former alt-journalism powerhouse, now a glorified small-college newspaper – ht tackles the story in a way that’d do the late Twin Cities Reader’s Margarete Grebe proud in terms of pure incurious superfluity.

Because besides the names of the people involved and the location of the incident, Carlyle gets pretty much everything wrong:

Joel Rosenberg tried to bring a gun into the Minneapolis Police headquarters and the cops wouldn’t let him.

Now Rosenberg is accusing the cop who took his gun of assault.

Er, yeah. We’ll come back to that.

Earlier this month, Rosenberg, who says he is ascience fiction writerand handgun instructor,

…which is something he “says” because he is a sci-fi author of some renown, and one of the state’s leading handgun instructors – including mine.

paid a visit to the MPD chief’s office to pick up some documents he’d requested. Sgt. William Palmer, the public information officer, saw that Rosenberg was packing, and asked him to dump the gun. Rosenberg refused. He insisted he had the right to wear his gun.

Palmer explained that a court order prevented him from carrying the gun. Rosenberg disagreed.

So Palmer physically took the gun away from Rosenberg and unloaded the cartridge. He handed it back when Rosenberg agreed to put the gun in his car.

And if you left it right there, it’d seem like a Catskills comedian’s joke; “A cop and a gun nut walk into the lobby of the cop shop…”

But Ms. Carlyle didn’t apparently see fit to report that Rosenberg’s “accusation” resulted in Rosenberg walking away from the event scot-free, but Palmer looking at potential legal nastiness. 

Ms. Carlyle apparently either didn’t bother to check that out, or think it was important for her smug, cossetted, know-it-all liberal audience to know it.

What’s the rest of the story? 

More tomorrow in Shot In The Dark.

If Joel Demos doesn’t win the MN CD5 race – and let’s face it, he’s a dark horse – at least someone should hire him away from his day job to do political ads.

(Or whomever is doing the ads for Demos – and as tightly-budgeted as Demos’ bid is, I can’t imagine he’s got a lot of staff on the case…)

Joel Demos may need more than a great web ad to beat Keith Ellison in the Fifth District. He’ll probably need the National Guard. The Fifth, aka “Berkeley on the Prairie”, is one of those districts where the DFL could endorse a package of pork chops and get 50% of the vote.

Still – if great ads won elections, Demos could start measuring the drapes in Ellison’s office.

There is no more thankless job in the world than running for CD5 (or CD4, across the river, which is just as bad).

But if Republicans in the city couldn’t hope for miracles, we couldn’t hope for much at all.

Last year, Minneapolis switched to “Instant Runoff” voting.   Under “IRV”, voters list their choices for an office in ranked order.

In exchange for getting slower elections decided by an arcane method that required the last mayoral election to be resolved by a slow, error-prone hand count, the cash-strapped city also got a huge bill. Minneapolis’ first IRV election cost almost $400,000:

A report prepared by Ginny Gelms (PDF), interim assistant city clerk/director of elections, estimates that about one-third of those costs are one-time start-up costs that won’t affect future elections…

…Said the report:

The greatest expenditure was in the area of voter education and outreach, making up 30% of the total amount spent on RCV. A portion of the City’s voter education and outreach program was funded through a grant from the Minneapolis Foundation in the amount of $35,000.

In other words, a third of the costs went to teaching people how to vote.

Teaching people how to vote.

In theory, they won’t need to spend that money again, in theory.  How much do you want to bet?

Hand count expenditures were the next largest, with staffing the hand count at 19% and the costs associated with the hand count facility at 17% of the total RCV cost.

Commenting on the report, Fairvote MN — which led the effort to get IRV in the city — notes that Minneapolis officials are working to acquire IRV-capable voting machines:\

And there’s good news!

The report also indicated that if RCV-capable voting equipment was available in the next election to tally the ballots, costs would be reduced by more than half.

So of the almost $400,000 hike, a third is hypothetically temporary; half the remainder will be saved with new machines; that means elections are going to be $100K-plus more expensive no matter what.

And that’s the good news!

The bad news?

Gelms has said that such equipment may be available within the next three years; the city is working closely with Hennepin County to have RCV-ready voting machines in place by the 2013 election.Such machines are currently used in San Francisco; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and will be used in upcoming November elections in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro, California.

And for all of you who worried that Diebold voting machines were going to be jiggered to take control of good ol’ traditional one-person, one-vote elections, you gotta love machines designed to count votes using a system that needs as much explaining as IRV does.

Slower, more expensive, less transparent elections.

Oh, and we get the same thing in “cash-strapped” Saint Paul, now, too!

Margaret Martin’s Minneapolis Crime Watch has always (since 2006) been one of those blogs that showed what blogging was supposed to be.

At a time when the Minneapolis media was whitewashing Minneapolis’ crime record, Margaret and her other writers (“Chunkstyle” and “Nordeaster”) prowled the crime reports and provided in many cases, the kind of analysis that the big media couldn’t.  I’m still not aware of anyone that covers North Minneapolis crime like MCW.

Posting has gotten a bit more sparse lately, as life’s pressures, little and big, catch up with the staff.  But MCW still catalogues the thrum of daily life in Minneapolis like nobody else.

Here’s a typical blotter, skimmed from the Minneapolis Police site:

ASSLT2 w/Dangerous Weapon; ASLT5

44th Ave N & Lyndale Ave N Sunday 3/14/10 0425 hrs 10-069671

Officers were flagged down by V2/BF, 30 yrs, who relayed that she & V1/BF, 23 yrs, were assaulted & kicked out of a car.

V1 & V2 were leaving a friend’s house when a pit bull chased them onto a parked car. S1/BM, 20-50 yrs, 6’2”, heavy set, & S2/BM, 40-50 yrs, 5’6”, light build, w/goatee, wearing blue jeans & white t-shirt, pulled up in an older white, 4 door car. Suspects picked up the victims, but wouldn’t drive them back to their hotel. S1 stopped the vehicle, pulled V1 out of the car & began beating her. V1 was struck an unknown number of times in the face & torso, causing a cut above her eye. S1 also shoved V1 to the ground, kicked her in the torso, & pulled out a wooden stick/club, striking V1 in the back several times. V2 was punched once in her right ear by S1, causing it to ring. Suspects were GOA. The officers transported the victims to the hospital.

Margaret’s looking for contribs.  If you have an interest in following and/or analyzing Minneapolis crime (ideally both), drop her a line!

(Steny Hoyer has reportedly asked House Republicans to apologize for the crime listed above).